While Labor’s election chances posted new lows heading into the Easter weekend, they largely flat-lined for much of last week. The pre-Easter fall was given renewed impetus by a JWS Research poll of 54 marginal seats, which indicated that Labor stood to lose at least 24 seats at the next election.
However, there was surprisingly little market movement from there on. At first glance, the lack of movement seemed inconsistent with last week’s ‘new information’ – two opinion polls (Essential and Roy Morgan) revealed further falls in Labor’s primary vote, uncertainty about what the May budget would mean for superannuation underpinned a surge of negative media coverage, and the Government responded by subsequently announcing its plans for super on Friday morning.
But taking a closer look, the movements in the Essential and Roy Morgan polls were within their respective margins of error, and may have already been priced in. As for superannuation, it was only on Friday that the Government announced its plans to amend the taxation treatment of super. Perhaps political markets were doing what some of the more vocal commentators failed to do this week – waiting to see the Government’s proposal before jumping to conclusions.
